


Extra Credit in Finality

by taygeta



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taygeta/pseuds/taygeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How was Britta during and after GI Joe delusions?  Jeff/Britta but featuring other characters. As semi-proposed by DefiantBritta on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extra Credit in Finality

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for GI Jeff

Britta found out in a mass text message while she was in Advanced Introduction to Criminal Behavior.  She scrambled with the phone with wide eyes as Professor Hanson threw her a dirty look, even though the vibrate sound against the table was very brief it was apparently interrupting the lecture. 

She rolled her eyes when Professor Hanson wasn’t looking and then glanced at her phone.  At first, Britta wondered it was some lame text message from Jeff while he was in-between classes.  Her next thought was that it was Annie trying to get her to help out with something she didn’t want to help out with.

It ended up being from Shirley about Jeff.

> **Shirley** : Dean and Chang found Jeff unconscious in his office. Something about pills and scotch. Lord help him.  At Denver Medical Center – Emergency Room – with them both. Lord help me.

Then came the litany of group text messages to follow –

> **Annie** : Wait? What? Is he okay?
> 
> **Abed** : Is this an appropriate life moment for me to bring my camera? Or would that make you all mad at me for lacking empathy?
> 
> **Hickey** : Son of a bitch…I knew something was off when I left him in the office.
> 
> **Professor Duncan** : And you all thought I was the most messed up one in the group.

Shirley was the cool-head of reason...sort of.

> **Shirley** : Not sure yet on his status. Doctors haven’t said anything. Just come when you can.  I am starting the prayer circle soon. 

After a few beats, there was another text from Annie.

> **Annie** : Ok – driving over with Abed now. He might arrive upset – I made him leave the camera at home. 

Britta didn’t know how to react to the messages - so she didn't. There was something about it that made her go into autopilot – grabbing her books and heading out the door without much of a thought.  She didn’t even bother to tell Hanson she was leaving class early.

“Miss Perry!  Where are you going, Miss Perry?”

Typically, Britta would have lectured back at Professor Hanson on the proper use of “Ms” and how women shouldn’t be defined by their marital status, but not even the use of the word “Miss” could make Britta turn back now.

Britta wasn’t even sure how she got into her car or on the road until she already a mile away from school. At the stoplight, she checked her phone, which had been telling her she had text messages. They were not from the group thread.

> **Shirley:** Are you getting our messages?  Did you have class today?
> 
> **Annie:** Are you okay?  Where are you? Did you not see Shirley’s group text?
> 
> **Abed** : Annie is making me text message you.

Britta put the phone down, glancing at the light as it shifted back to green.  Her fingers tapped nervously on the steering wheel as the drive let her slowly absorbed the brief details.

 _Scotch? Pills?_ _What was he thinking?_

Jeff wasn’t suicidal – she would have known…right? 

She found herself taking a deep breath and exhaling at the next red light, realizing that it was the first real breath she had had since reading Shirley’s text message in class.  Her breathing went on like that during her entire drive – a reminder to stay calm and take deep breaths.

When she got there, though, she sat in the car - hands on the steering, car engine off – hyperventilating. A part of her wasn’t sure what awaited her inside. She had stopped looking at the text messages after they had been more like questions about where she was and if she was heading over to the hospital yet.  A part of her wasn’t sure she wanted to know. 

_The very idea that Jeff could –_

She didn’t even want to finish her thoughts.

Britta got out of the car, grabbing her purse and phone.  She was missing 23 text messages. She scrolled through the last few before she walked in.

> **Shirley** : Britta, everyone is already here.  They pumped Jeff’s stomach and now we’re waiting to see if he’ll be okay. In Room 1025B.
> 
> **Annie** : Jeff is recovering in Room 1025B.  We think he might be okay.
> 
> **Abed** : We fear the worst. Come soon. Can you make a dramatic entrance when you do?  I have my smartphone camera.

Britta climbed into what she thought was the slowest elevator ride in the world.  Every few floors there was a shuffle of patients and doctors. She wandered down the sterile hall until she got to 1025B. 

The first thing she saw was Jeff, lying pallid in the hospital bed – somewhat delirious.

“Go Joe!” he murmured at some point.

“Hey guys,” she said softly as she walked in.

“Brit-ta!  Why haven’t you been responding to our messages?” said Shirley in her high-cutesy voice.  She lowered her voice and said, “You did get them, right? You know it’s rude not to write back?”

“I…was driving,” she said.  “Safety first, right?”  She decked out of the awkwardness and said, “How’s he doing?”

Annie chimed in, “He’s still unconscious – hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Is he…going to?” There was something about speaking that felt foreign to Britta, her voice sounded hollow and distant to her ears.

“They’re not sure,” Shirley said rather gravely.

Before Britta could let herself take in the news, Chang tried to be reassuring, “I spoke silently with the primarily Asian medical staff and they think we found him in time.”

“Spoke silently?” asked Professor Duncan, skeptically.

“You couldn’t possibly understand the secret language that Asians have acquired now that we have taken over all things medicine,” said Chang.

“Chang, need we remind you?  You’re not a doctor. If you are then – well – I’m the Queen of England.”

“Better practice that hand-swish wave movement then…”

“Guys, guys…” said Annie.  “We should focus on more important things?” She gestured her hands over to Jeff.

Jeff said softly, “Rack…eternity…”

“Well, he must be doing somewhat okay,” said Britta walking over to Jeff’s side.  “Still a sexist pig even when unconscious.”

“He could be referencing shopping and perfume?” Annie tried to argue.

No one bothered to argue against Annie, but several raised their eyebrows, clearly thinking contrary to her interpretation of Jeff’s delusional events.

Britta turned back to look at Jeff, not quite sure what to make of his pale face and his maybe dying.  She had seen him sick before and had even taken care of him a little bit.  He had gotten her cold during that year they had been sort of together.  He had complained so much about it being her fault that she arrived on the third evening of his cold with Egg Drop Soup from their favorite Chinese restaurant near his apartment and some orange juice.

“There,” she had replied. “Stop complaining.”

She was about to leave when he said, “Where you going?” He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.  His nose was red and his voice sounded like it had gone through a grater.

“Home.”

“You came all the way over here to give me this and you’re going home?”

“You want me to come in? You look awful, Winger.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Doesn’t this make us even?”

He made an attempt at a deep breath and said more seriously, “I’m just asking if you want to come in.  I’ve been in self-quarantine and was going to watch a movie…and you can’t catch my cold.”

She shrugged and said, “Fine…but only for a few minutes.  Not the whole thing. I have a paper to write.”

He handed her the couch throw blanket and they put on _Blade Runner_ while Jeff had a small bowl of soup.  Eventually, Jeff nodded off – his head resting on her arm.  Britta remembered looking at him in that moment, enjoying the quiet of it all and just taking in his features.  He was usually so confident – to the point of annoying.  Now in his sickly state, he was just letting himself be. He had even invited her in without any overtures toward sex. It was moments like this made her think that maybe they could have been real.

But fast-forward in time – back to the present – this Jeff wasn’t dealing with some cold and she wasn’t going to be able to fix whatever it was that was wrong. 

Why had he drank so much and taken those pills? No one in the room knew and each and everyone believed they knew him best of all.

Time passed by and Britta wasn’t sure how long she had stood next to Jeff’s bedside until Shirley put her hand on her arm.

Britta looked up, surprised.

“You, okay?” Shirley asked quietly. Britta then noticed that Annie and Abed were now in the hall and Dean and Chang were sitting in chairs. She wasn’t sure where Professor Duncan and Hickey went.

She nodded, “Yeah…just worried – like everyone else.”

“Like everyone else? You’ve been standing here a long time.”

“Just thinking.”

There was something in Shirley’s eyes that Britta read as “that’s a lot of thinking,” but Shirley didn’t say that. She replied simply, “Okay.”

* * *

 Jeff woke up sometime in the evening – several hours after he had been admitted to the Emergency Room.  He had explained about turning 40 and the scotch and pills. There was some weird narrative about _G.I. Joe_ , which only Abed seemed to really understand. 

Because of the situation, Jeff was kept for overnight observation and slowly the group trickled away.  Shirley went home to the kids.  Professor Duncan and Chang left arguing and Annie somehow managed to convince them to take the Dean with them. Annie, Abed, and Britta were the last hold-outs.

“Well, if you’re okay, Jeff – Abed is insisting I take him home to edit some smartphone video project he has.” Her arms were crossed against her chest, obviously wanting to stay longer.

Jeff nodded, “Yeah – thanks.  I’m sorry again about making you guys worry.”

“So long as you’re okay, Jeff – that’s all that matters.” Annie leaned over to give Jeff a hug and Abed gave him a high-five. They waved good-bye to Britta and headed out the door.

“Last one standing?” said Jeff.

“Someone had to be,” she smiled.

“Better you than the Dean.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Well, the way I hear it, _someone_ arrived last.”

“I had class,” she said and then made face. “Hanson is so going to fail me.   Kind of your fault for having a Year Forty crisis.”

“Why is it my fault?”

“I left class.  I didn’t even tell her why.”

Jeff seemed surprised, “You dropped everything and headed over here?”

Britta shrugged her shoulders, “Shirley and Annie made it seem like kind of urgent.  You were – also – kind of maybe dying.”

They looked at each other in silence for moment before Jeff said slowly, “Well…I – I appreciate it. I’ll see if the Dean can make some excuses for you.  I'm sure I have a few cards up my sleeve now with this - if that means anything.  Wouldn’t want Hanson to get in the way of your future in therapizing.” 

She scoffed, “Some future – I didn’t even know you were headed to a crisis.”

“It wasn’t exactly a crisis,” said Jeff. “It was just a bad combination of events that escalated into a bigger problem than it should have been. Besides, I’ve been repressing my age for so long that I think it shocked me to figure out how old I was now…” He grimaced and finished, “Forty.”

“Come on,” smiled Britta. “It’s not that bad. You kind of partied like a twenty-one-year-old.”

“That hangover was bad, but I don’t remember it being quite as bad as – this.” Jeff raised his hands to gesture around the hospital room. “And at least I had fun in that process.”

Nurse Williams, a friendly, young redhead who had been on shift the last few hours, peeked her head into the hospital room, “Mr. Winger, visiting hours are over, but I don’t mind making a special consideration for your girlfriend or spouse – if she’d like to stay a little longer and you’re feeling up to it.”

Britta was about to correct Nurse Williams, but Jeff leaned over to grab Britta’s hand and spoke before she could. “Thanks, Nurse. We really appreciate it,” he said with his trademark charming smile.

The nurse returned the smile, but looked over at Britta, “You need to keep an eye on that one.  He gave you guys a real big scare today, didn’t he?”

Britta glanced at Jeff’s hand in hers before looking back at the Nurse with an awkward reply, “Oh…did he ever.”

“A woman likes to be surprised, Mr. Winger, but I think she could probably go without anymore of these kind of surprises.”

“I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.”

Nurse Williams left them with wink.

Britta looked at Jeff with a raised eyebrow.

He pretended to be confused, “What?”

She nodded at their still-clasped hands, “I’m surprised you didn’t want me to leave so you could make friends with Nurse Williams.”

“Not really my type…”

“Very married?”

“Yes, but also you’re the only one in our crazy group that doesn’t hold back on being judgey about me right now – and I deserve it.”

Britta placed her other hand over his and said, “Jeff, don’t beat yourself up – it was stupid, but understandable. I’m just…I’m glad it wasn’t because you really wanted to – y’know – kill yourself or something.”

“Are you saying that because you didn’t anticipate it for all your therapizing or do you really care?” he ended on a sarcastic tone.

She rolled her eyes, but admitted, “A little of both.”

“Ah-ha!”

"More one than the other!" 

Instead of being angry about being called out on that tiny amount of guilt, Britta found herself laughing and thought how it was nice to laugh.  They went on like this for almost an hour before Nurse Williams came back in saying that Jeff needed to rest. 

“Okay, guess that’s my cue,” said Britta, giving his hand a squeeze and – seeing that Nurse Williams was still standing there – she leaned in to give him a kiss on the forehead.  "We'll come get you tomorrow."

“That’s it?” he said, when she pulled away. A few inches away from her face, he whispered in overly dramatic emphasis, “Britta –I almost died.”

“Oh… _now_ you almost died…not – you were ‘being stupid’…?”

Jeff leaned in and gave her a lingering peck on the lips before saying, “A little bit of both.”

“Okay, you crazy kids,” said Nurse Williams. “I already gave you more time than I was supposed to.”

Jeff leaned his head back on his pillow tiredly and said again, “And we appreciate it.”

The word “we” echoed in Britta’s mind for a moment.

“Good night, Jeff,” said Britta. It was then that she saw how tired he still was, his grip on her hand loosening as he started dozing off.

“Good night, Britta,” he said sleepily, letting go.

* * *

Britta sat in her car.  Her phone was full of messages she didn’t want to reply to from Shirley and Annie.  There was a new YouTube video from Abed she was featured in and didn’t want to see. The Dean had sent her a passive aggressive email demanding to know how she was able to stay late in the hospital. 

She was waiting for autopilot to kick in, to start the drive home and write an apology letter to Professor Hanson and feed her cats before starting her later shift at the bar.  

But she was still sitting in her car fifteen minutes after she found it in the parking structure. There was a part of her that was still anticipating a fall-out, a change in events that changed everything. She didn't want to drive because she wasn’t sure if she had just missed it, or if it had found her anyway.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated!


End file.
